Despite squawking from some Republicans, there is nothing disreputable about trading prisoners with an enemy — even an enemy as despicable as the Taliban.

Nor is the fact that the Obama administration released five former Taliban leaders from Guantanamo in return for a single U.S. prisoner in itself disturbing. The Israelis — not known for mollycoddling terrorists — once traded 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for one corporal.

Still, should the U.S. government abandon a soldier captured under ambiguous circumstances? Surely not. Bergdahl was hardly a hero, but he was an American prisoner of war — the only one still held by the Taliban. And it was right to seek his freedom.